rapturerebornmmorpgfandomcom-20200216-history
Part 89
Sitemap --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- - More interesting items/ideas for a Bioshock Rapture MMORPG --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- - Part 89 --- --- --- Flag of Rapture ?? : Nationalism ? Yes and No - identity - used as mark of official presence (City Authorities...) There's no wind to make flags fly (currents out in ocean .. big lights, bioluminescent flags ? hmmm) (Ryan's face - he would not want it on the flag ... on the money .. OK) Probably have the Atlas symbol (the Classic Titan, not that terrorist thug's face) along with the Great Chain ?? Mottos like "Science, Industry, Commerce", etc... --- --- --- "The Luminescent Biomass is the Enigmatic Source of ADAM in the BioShock Series" : SO the story is that the Coca Cola company decided to dump its leftover chemicals from their 1910-ish brand Radio-Coke ("It has Radium !!!" - a product of the popular public 'healthful attribute' misconception after the discovery/publicity of that element and other radioactives like Radon. Dubious health-giving effects was attributed to it in the common culture of that time). This dumping resulted in the supposed mutation of the Sea Slugs, which ADAM comes from. Hence the glow ... That could be a nice origins story for it, or not. Anyway - Whats to keep the whatever out in the nearby ocean from mutating Rapture's inhabitants ? Maybe THAT is the real source of the widespread deformities (and insanity, etc...). Fish will concentrate 'the whatever' chemicals within their metabolic systems, and Rapturites ate LOTS of fish .... Of course REAL radiation damages and kills things generally, much more frequently than it mutates them (and most significant mutations are fatal to the mutated organism - disrupting some important functioning -- that is why they irridate food to preserve it - kills all the bacteria in a sealed package). This glowing Biomass I would rather attribute to bioluminescence (which REALLY DOESNT have much to do with mutations, other than atypically being located at this spot), and the gentle SeaSlug's ADAM just being the result one of your every-day natural mutations. The Slugs 'mutation' is just a local anomaly, as any function of every organism was originally the product of one or more 'mutations'. The Slug's ADAM chemicals sounds like some venom effect which was a viable trait for use against the Seaslug's (actually a mollusk) enemies or prey. It just happened to also have a significant effect on human tissue. Small Bioluminescent organisms living in some microcosm created by the geothermal activity down there (warmth and possibly chemicals from volcanic vents) ??? Biomass sounds like a buzzword which really only implies "bunch of stuff living down there in the cold depths", and with that level of bioluminescence it would be more than a small microcosm around a few hot volcanic vents. Bioluminescence takes up energy and the light intensity decreases rapidly with distance thru water, so it has to be a huge mass of something able to waste energy (implying a rich environment) and possibly be floating throughout the water itself to be close enough to where anybody could see it so brightly. A cute (and plausible) answer - the organic pollution from Rapture enriched the environment sufficiently (feeding bacteria and thus on up the food chain) allowing what might have been a much smaller original 'Biomass' (near the volcanic vents) to spread significantly - causing the whole area around parts of Rapture (centered around the waste disposal outlets...) to glow (much more than they did when Rapture wasn't there). --- --- --- Fontaine's Army : McDonagh : "Fontaine knew our blokes were coming. We were done over. Them Splicers come screaming out the woodwork. Burping fire, spitting ice... demons out of the Bible, they were. Never seen nothing like it. It wasn't a business he was building, it was an army." Yet McDonagh feels that the dead Fontaine's businesses shouldn't be taken over (no mention Fontaine ever had anyone, heir or partners, who would be there to assume control/ownership). It is all proceeds from a criminal activity, which are usually forfeit under common law, but that is ignored. Seizing the businesses to stop and investigate the extent of other criminal activities of business bought with money generated by Fontaine's criminal Smuggling. We (until later) don't hear detail about any other of Fontaine's businesses (besides Fontaine Futuristic and the Fisheries) being 'seized' or 'nationalized' (Fisheries were used directly for the Smuggling crimes, and Futuristics to produce the weaponized Plasmids used to kill city Law Authorities). But then "Ryan Baaaad" is the writer's contrived plot twist story, so logic/consistency need not apply. --- --- --- Fresh Fish : With all the crates/boxes/piles of fish (and living ones flapping around) seen in Neptunes Bounty (BS1) it seems fish harvesting operations were still ongoing -- probably resumed/restored after "Ryan's Peace" was established by suppression of the Atlas's Splicer Violence using the Pheromone system. Ryan had had to do alot to keep the people of Rapture alive while the fighting with Atlas's anarchists was ongoing. Fish go bad very fast (and you have no "ADAM did it" excuse, as you might for all the well-preserved corpses), so all that would be from very recent fishing activity. --- --- --- Alphas with Barnacles on Their Suits : It requires a Long time of being in the ocean water for Barnacles to grow (and it disrupts/kills them when they are out of sea water too long). Suits stored in water ? Has to be Ocean water - else the barnacles dry up after too long out of the water and die (never to grow that big and the small ones while they are trying to adhere need a stable surface). Suits normally would be washed down as part of their maintenance. We saw alot of the Big Daddies walking about inside (dry) for long periods of time. * Possibly recovered Suits from dead Alphas which sat out in the ocean for an extended period ? * Barnacles also adhere to solid surfaces. The cloth (canvas) sections of that type of suit would not have any barnacles growing on them. * Maybe we should have had some barnacles growing on the faces of Splicers (and certainly those dead ones (corpses) in the water which seem to last intact forever). So NO Barnacles on any Big Daddies in the MMORPG. --- --- --- Your Rapture Directory (Phone Book, RT&T ) : "... in your Rapture Directory" (heard in Minervas Den) Not known whether the phone company (Rapture Telephone and Telegraph) maintained The Rapture Directory or someone else (as a separate business). There must've been many many copies of this (phonebook) directory to be found, and they are a valuable source of information because such a directory includes ADDRESSES of businesses, which can be located on old maps of Rapture. Perhaps for the sake of 'play' interest in the MMORPG, only pages are to be found (Splicers used most of the original supply for TP or somesuch), and many surviving pages are water (or other) damaged. Depending on what the found page contains, some may only be worth turning in to City Hall for the Bounty, while others might contain clues to possibly valuable salvage locations (and used as Props in Missions).. There would be a New Rapture Directory for the MMORPG's restored phone system in New Rapture (dont forget to get your business listed...). --- --- --- Societal Systems (Philosophies) in Opposition - Ryan Vs Lamb : The difference is that Rapture would have never got built under Sophia Lamb Parasites consume, not produce. They also impair the normal function of the 'host', often to the point of being fatal. Collectivists run to only the least common denominators, and the people who manage to get into power don't want everyone else to excel. Ryan's world (and society) was much closer to our own (assuming YOU the reader don't live in North Korea), and the Lamb's collectivist system would have died immediately if it was without the preexisting city to live off of. It could not build such a place. A similar result would likely happen any place on the Surface 'The Family' infested. And the Free World would probably fight against Sofia's tyrannical system as it actually did others whose goal was subjugation (that's assuming her delusions actually added upto anything more than just a bunch of unfortunate people held under her sway, and that they could manage to be much of a threat before they died off). As Augustus Sinclair once said - "Sofia Lamb is the Rot in the Wainscoting" --- --- --- Puppet Show Done With Corpses by Splicers : An amusing thing to see, and it explains why we found so many corpse just lying about Rapture (intact, seemingly for years) --- I betcha YOU didn't notice the strings like I did.... Splicers apparently had lots of time on their hands (or what they had left of their hands...) , and it is easy (and unfortunate) for one to run out of amusements... Other pieces of cadavers might have various uses (hmmmmm -- Alas poor Yorick... ). Actually (for MMORPG), this is more serious than you think. Splicers (the ones still surviving being pretty clever) have MANY ways to fool you, and there now is a general warning about verifying that corpses are actually dead, and to watch out for situations where 'dead' are used to look alive. --- --- --- MMORPG Mini-Game - Clash of Clowns : Introducing a Rapture Reborn MMORPG exclusive - The Clown Splicer (3D printer downloads will be made available to all paying Players). New Plasmids used only in "The Circus" - a nitrous oxide chamber Colorful horrifying maiming and death - what more could you want for a computer game ?? Quite a 'laff and a half' ... Grease Paint and Clawhammers and Napalm ... what fun !! Gibs complete with colorful sparkles and fake acid spitting flowers and smears of black and white grease-paint. If the Red Nose suddenly glows purple - watch out !!! Masks were one thing - but now the whole body hidden !!!! Sinister... --- --- --- The Plasmids Visual Presentations (Being Not Quite As Shown in Advertisements) ... : This fact was a well known joke amongst the Users : Have Fontaine Futuristics/Ryan Labs Product Development Films of how the Plasmids/Tonic 'in use' actually worked, and what smoke and mirrors effects enhanced making them look more 'real' (many made by the Plasmid producing company - including designer's talk-throughs with comments on how to hype the product, criticisms, requests for improvements, and ways that they could be best 'sold' to what customers). One particular Constipation Cure did not quite make it to being one of the popular Combat Plasmids (lucky for us ??). Something being about it too messy and requiring an awkward stance... Lovely partial animations (like the Plasmid instructionals we got in BS1/BS2, etc...) Demonstration 'test' films showing things going wrong ... Some shown explanations of the 'effects' being more suggestive, and actually being done someway other than what the name implies (ie- Teleport being more a time distortion to the user and the common 'clouding' effect to those watching, instead of some physically impossible action). --- --- --- ADAM Terminology and Slang : There was a whole ADAM users 'Sub-Culture' that would have grown around its use - normal uses (for work ...) and for the 'recreational' aspect of the products. There would be an early period - some being from commercials and advertisements, and then later there would be the Civil War terms. After that, more would probably be used by the inhabitants during the Chaotic Period. New Rapture would add more as the non-users (ex-Splicers) would have terms more of derision emphasizing the rejection of ADAMs use. The Players could come up with new terms for all of these - no good using anachronistic slang from our world - original stuff please... No "Splice This Sucka!!!" Comedy acts would come to include references to ADAM. Popular Songs, etc... Teenagers would no doubt come up with totally unintelligible phrases and verbage (as they always do). Newspapers and literary sources would coin terminology for all the aspects of life ADAM would affect. Who knows what all the deranged Splicer societies would have come up with. Squidin' ... --- --- --- Tenenbaum "in front of a Gene Sequence" : Basic Bacteria (ie- E Coli - simple bacteria organism/tissue) has ~4million base pairs of Amino Acids (~3000 Genes) - thats ALOT of "stringing the nucleotide beads", a bit more than one long nights work, assuming you know/understand the order you want them to be in. Plasmids (the independent loops of DNA utilized) fortunately can have base pair sequences only in the thousands. So again the Plasmid/Tonic effects should (to be within the realm of possibility) HEAVILY need to make use of EXISTING genes/sequences from EXISTING biological examples for the effects the Plasmid/Tonics achieve, and the mechanisms they are implemented through. We already know that the ADAM products aren't particularly stable, so THAT aspect makes it a bit simpler to design (alot of a real organisms genetic/body mechanisms have complex redundancy/self-repair built into them to be resistant to all the external forces which can damage/disrupt their function and limit the organism's continued existence.) The genetics used can be quite a bit cruder than Nature's... --- --- --- Self Sufficiency in the Modern World is a Tall Order : Rapture is far too small and lacks the broad range of resources needed to sustain something equivalent to our modern-age existence for very long. Find Alternatives - of which many may be MUCH more expensive, thus production being relegated only to the highest priority uses. Find Equivalent materials, OR create Synthetics, OR going long distances under the Ocean, to get what is required. Do Without - more than a few modern technologies were based on materials taken from just a few special places in the world (where they were eventually obtained cheaply enough to be used by ordinary people, otherwise they are luxuries only for rich people.) PRE-Stockpile - Surface-obtained materials/tools cheaply, sufficient to last some long length of time (many-many decades) -- at minimum initially to give a little time to develop alternatives. Continue to (have to) Import - from the Surface World (Authorized 'secure/safe' imports may have continued for critically necessary things or for deficiency discovered late). New technologies developed "Up There" might solve some of the shortage problems - allowing production IN Rapture. --- --- Some Pictures of Flybots are Wrong : Having only a single main propeller will have the unit spinning uncontrollably on its up-down axis, as it has nothing substantial to counter/oppose that rotational force (most simple helicopters have the tail-fan which pushes against the rotation out on a long tail - it is long for leverage). The real Flybot design, preserving its basic shape (as seen), had double lift propellers going in opposite directions to counter each other's rotation force (which many real helicopters do that way). --- --- Raising a City (for Real) : Chicago was originally built low near the Lake Michigan water level (the whole location was relatively flat) which prevented the sewers from functioning properly, leading to a severe sanitation problem. The solution was to raise the entire city dozens of feet so that the sewers had an adequate downhill flow. In January 1858, the first brick building in Chicago was raised -- a four story, 70 foot wide, 750 ton masonry structure, located at the north-east corner of Dearborn Street and Randolph Street, was lifted. Large numbers of screw jacks placed under the building and worked manually by hundreds of men were used to simultaneously raise the intact buildings, and new foundations/cellars were build underneath to hold up the raised structures. Street levels were raised with earth fill to match the new elevations. Fortunately that was the days of few utilities (or regulations/lawyers) to complicate the operation. - Problem with floaty shit in Infinites Columbia - what powered all the fantasy whatzits and doodads ? Didn't see any smokestack/powerplants for every separately floating building/city block, so there must've been some additional thingamabobs and fandangles to perform that needed function. So why did so much of the rest of the city still have technological throwbacks still in use ? They only had 2 decades to make use of all the magical stuff stolen through Tears. Such things (mechanisms) would also make perfect targets for those Vox anarchist bombthrowers - just have to cut a few wires (or whatever) and huge sections of Columbia go hurling towards the ground or into collision, with appropriately impressive destruction and loss of life. Great story potential completely lost. --- --- --- Point Prometheus Facility Question : The game writers want Ryan to be 'the bad guy', so of course emphasize the whole 'Turn children into Lil Monsters' thing, but Fontaine had to have multitude of LS being 'milked' (long before Ryan 'seized' Fontaine Futuristics) to support his extensive ADAM product production. It is quite likely most LS preexisted Ryan's running Rapture's ADAM industry. The 'child' snatching incidents which we get anecdotal evidence of - it is not clear how prevalent that was, or how many predated Fontaine's death (or even if there were widespread activity of ADAM bootleggers, who needed their own LS). We see Point Prometheus sometime (year or more) after the Civil War starts, and the Gatherer/Protector programs are seriously in progress -- WHEN unclaimed bodies are plentiful (much earlier, "Gathering" from living Splicers may have been looked into as a way to suppress the criminally insane incarcerated ones). Why else does Atlas/Fontaine run to Point Prometheus (if he didn't have a hand in setting it all up originally)?? One of his abandoned facilities ? Education Facilities for processing/conditioning the 'host' Little Sisters (pre-Gathering) would preexist (maybe Fontaine referred to them as his "Golden Goosies" ?). The armored escorts (Protectors) would be a logical successor to the pre-Big Daddy maintenance worker programs (and make use of similar/same facilities). The Big Daddy making facilities are substantial, and really don't look like the product of a war emergency situation (wouldn't need the 'happy' signs... the building looks purpose built... The Maintenance Cyborgs made from criminally insane Splicers could predate all that 'Protector' thing by many years. The Museum complex converted into a training area does look quite expeditious (and Ryan may have been considering using armed BDs as 'soldiers' - if the civil war went on for much longer). Suchong worked there while the Protectors (ignore that broken BaS Canon that he died alot earlier) were being created, but similar work may have been done for Maintenance Cyborgs with all the genetic modifications they would require. - It is a bit odd that Fontaine would still have that huge setup at the top of that large building without Ryan knowing/having it dismantled/sealed up. Fontaine supposedly never Spliced, so how likely to have that whole thing there to desperately overfill himself with ADAM (which he would have known would be eventually fatal) when a really good escape submarine to take him quickly to the Surface World (and greater fortunes/power) would have been a MUCH better contingency ???? The Bioshock Game Plots are not "great" literature, AND often pretty illogical .... --- --- --- --- "Columbia To Infinity" was a novel-based Film made in Rapture : Written around 1955... A Rapturesque fictional allegory about the poisonous effects of Parasitism upon people and society. It is set in a warped mythical city state, in the manner of urban America in the earlier part of the 20th century, but really with little real resemblance to the Historic America (low production values... hack writing). There is absurd religious extremism (a very bad parody of Christianity as a state religion), with the city being founded around it. Grotesque metaphysical beliefs are displayed and portrayed as used to reinforce the allegiance of the ruling population. The City's leaders misuse the images of some American Founding Fathers as religious idols, men who had themselves sought freedom from state religions in their time, but whose image are in the story's city, ironically named "Columbia", being misused as tools for tyranny, to somehow justifying actions in the name of patriotism and religion. Racism is used as a catalyst to implement a regimented class system within the community, with 'pure' whites as the rulers, and non-whites, mediterraneans, orientals, non-believers as the serfs. There is crony capitalistic Monopolism of the City's industry, manufacturing and businesses, with unsubtle pretended 'competition', which forms a trap for unfortunate 'have nots' being limited to low bidding in a 'buyers' labor market. The fantasy businesses presented in the story ignore/distort all the commercial/legal components which would be needed to make an economic system work. Technological advancements are largely turned to ways to control the population and to make war against the world. It is never explained/shown how raw materials manage to get to the City or how the City formed and survived. A extensive secret police/police state suppresses not just the lowly serf-like workers, but everyone else into a state of fear - that of not conforming sufficiently. Countless informants keep 'tabs' on loyalty expressed via thoughts and deeds of the populace, including a hierarchy of serfs. Lickspittle Journalism is just an organ of the government ruling class, and regurgitates whatever the tyrants require to pretend to justify themselves. The 'Twist' to the Film's story is that the City itself is a delusion contrived by a bunch of self-serving 'evil' charlatans (shown pretending to create great scientific advancements for humanity's betterment), who by using hallucinogenic drugs and people's gullibility, enable a complex charade, which is simply a proving ground - part of a bigger plan to eventually do the same to control the entire world. Self-serving anarchists (who have no solutions like most anarchists) exist as 'the dangerous other', who violently oppose the despotic situation, but are easily manipulated. They become the pawns of the ruling party to create crisis and fear amongst the population, which in turn is all being used by the charlatans to further their goals. Those who disagree with the rigid 'class' arrangements, even if belonging to the higher classes, are ferreted out and dispose of. Bizarre magic like events take place in the Film's story (weren't in the book), which do little but confuse the purported theme (apparently they were added as an excuse to have better 'Special Effects' -- Many of the clay-mation techniques weren't too bad...). Some of the 'floating' aspects hinted at, but not really elaborated upon, in the Film were some kind of reference to the "Raising of Chicago", but only as heard and misinterpreted by an idiot. A murderous thug sent on a mission into Columbia is part of a plan to 'stir the pot' at a time when the city had been made into a 'powder keg' (you see not quite clever symbolistic objects of these repeatedly throughout the story) as a pretext for culling out all "undesirables" to facilitate the adoption of a mechanical revolution (whom the charlatan masters will have even greater control over). In the end, the whole fake city crashes in flame and burns, taking all with it - both the innocent and the guilty, leaving only one who managed to escape it early, to relate the tail to the viewers (call me Ishmael...). The lesson of the story being that layers of parasitism and expected/fostered parasitism leads to degeneracy and eventual catastrophe for the World's peoples. Music, songs and dance scores by S. Cohen. The work was much criticized in Rapture's press for its crude/absurd distortions, in alluding that it represented the social ills of 1900 America, and the author's feeble argument that the exaggerations were "justified to make a point". The Rapture Times Movie Reviewer said : "I thought it was a farce comedy, until I was told it wasn't... still a greater farce then, in another way. I give it Three Dead Fish." Ryan's comments upon the work were : "There are more than enough real situations in the World (now and in the past) where Parasitism and Altruists have dragged down mankind without having to create some absurd fantasy place to illustrate it. A new wing of Ryan Amusements is NOT expected to be added using the film as its theme." --- --- --- . . .